There's a reason we all do this - hunt for parts, seek out schematics, sit before an unforgiving breadboard or spend hours soldering tiny bits of metal onto tiny bits of fiberglass and copper. We do it because we share a common love for electro music and the instruments that enable us to make that music. We are not only artists, we are that peculiar breed of artist that eschews the preformulated tubes of paint in the art store, instead choosing to grind his own pigment. Of course, in the end, it's not about the paint, but what it is he puts to canvas.

Howard has given us this wonderful environment to share this work; to be inspired and feed off of each other's creativity. I believe that was one of his goals when he founded electro-music. The MFOS forum already has done it, and I would like to do the same in the Thomas Henry Designs forum: provide a sticky thread for those of you who've made any kind of music with your Thomas Henry designs. I'd like to see people describe, if they wish, what instruments or circuits they used, and, just as much, I would be curious to know what they were thinking or why they made the music. These things interest me; I think they interest us all. Everyone has a reason for what they do, and often it is as important to them as the piece itself. So, if you have anything you'd like to share, please feel free to post it to this thread.

I'll start it off with a piece I recorded tonight instead of doing what it was I thought I was going to do - that's usually how I end up recording. It seems when I sit down to do compose something specific, I more often than not come up empty. If I have something else to do, that's usually when inspiration will strike.

In this case, after a fairly frustrating day, my son pestered me for a walk I had promised him a couple of days ago. This walk had been postponed twice in a row because of rain here. Today it was not terribly sunny, but it wasn't raining, either. I'd just sat down to breadboard the next exciting TH circuit in the chain, but knew I had better fulfill my promise.

It's a rather small town I live in - it doesn't take but maybe fifteen or twenty minutes to walk from one end to the other. We walked to where my old grade school had stood on the other side of town. It was nice, cool weather, and I found the walk a welcome change. I began to think of how some things seem important and how some things are important. I thought of this eight year old boy who adores his father today, and I thought of how, in a few short years, he would soon grow out of this current phase and enter the phase in which he wouldn't be caught dead chumming with his father.

It being our memorial day weekend, I thought of people I wanted to talk to, but could never again converse with in this life. I thought of the impenetrable gulf that separated me from them and how one day, like all living creatures, I too would cross that gulf. I thought of the next soldier who would die and wondered what he was thinking. I thought of the people who had no choice, and wondered what they were thinking. I realized I'm a very lucky person.

So, when I got back, and I sat down in front of the breadboard, I still had the VCO-1 through Mankato filter patch set up. I was still of a mood and figured before I started on the breadboard, I'd play with the patch just a little bit more. I usually run from the synth/breadboards into my Lexicon MX200 reverb, then into the D8. On the Lexicon, I can set up a long delay, enter notes and then set delay time for infinite, effectively turning it into a looper. I entered a few notes of the VCO through Mankato, then switched the delay to infinite so no other notes would be captured by the delay. This signal, and my live signal were then passed through the second stage of the MX200, which was set up as more or less a blanket of reverb. The VCO-1 signal was PWM, modulated by a Ray Wilson LFO, and another LFO was connected to the Thomas Henry keyboard to provide vibrato. The keyboard voltage was controlling the VCO-1 and the Mankato filter cutoff, and trigger/gating a Ray Wilson ADSR which was patched to control the cutoff of the filter. When I had the first VCO/Mankato notes notes recorded into the Lexicon delay, I then adjusted the live signal level relative to the repeating delay 'accompaniment'. I reached over, flipped on the recorder and let it run until it ran out of disk space (I'm always close to full, so this doesn't last nearly as long as I actually played). As I played, I adjusted things like PWM rate, portamento, vibrato level, filter cutoff, filter resonance, and how much effect the EG had on the filter. This is what was captured by the D8 before the dreaded "disk full message" appeared, warts and all - there are no overdubs or anything like that. The only editing is the fade in and fade out (the fade out was necessary to prevent the song from abruptly stopping once the disk in the recorder had been filled).

That was *really* nice! This little ditty is a myth buster; it blows away the notion that you need a lot of gear to make good sound, and it shows just how rich a single VCO can sound. One VCO, 2 LFOs, one VCF, one digital delay, one reverb unit... these are simple ingredients that you have used masterfully.

I forgot to mention the power supply is also a Thomas Henry affair - it's a Midwest Audio Platinum Power Supply. Every recording I've made since spring 2005 has used that. I would bet it's essentially the same power supply that's in the "21st Century Synthesizer" project.

Germaniac once mentioned that even a leaf blower would sound good through my Dim C - I'd have to say the same thing about the Mankato. Whenever I use it, I tend towards more of the "classic" analog synth sounds. Actually, the Mankato does have a tap at 12 dB that renders a more plastic type of response that inspires me towards some different form. In any event, I don't want to 'pigeonhole' the Mankato with the 'old skool' label.

In any event, the sample was one of those things I recorded but will probably never "use" because it's all on one stereo track and I can't edit it very easily. It's got a number of keyboard flubs that I'd want to rework. It's one of those samples that ain't perfect, but still frustrates me because I'd like to share it just for the sound of the thing.

So, if anyone has anything they've recorded that's cool - a sound, a blip, a passage that falls into that category of "I like this, but don't know what to do with it" please post it here! I love listening to that kind of stuff.

Cheers,
Scott

Edit: Leaf blower, not snow blower. There is no snow in Germaniac land._________________My Site

Such walks are important for a young man. I remember the one I had 40 years ago with my grand father quite clearly. He then opened my eyes for trees and plants and such, which is a joy still._________________Jan

My father was really good for walks. He was a biologist and could name the Latin genus & species for all of my questions. So often I would ask him "Hey, Dad, what kind of tree is that?" "Oh that's juglans nigra" or a beetle would be coleoptera this or that. He'd answer me and I'd still scratch my head

Your story about your grandfather made me think of a short story written by, surprisingly, Stephen King. No, it wasn't about something popping out of a sewer gutter and eating one's liver - this was actually one of his non-horror works. IIRC, it was called "My Pretty Pony" and it was a story of a boy and his grandfather on a walk. It really had a profound effect on me, because it was the best description on the nature of time (from a human viewpoint) I can recall reading. The grandfather talked about how time moved so slowly when one was young, and he called that "my pretty pony" time. Point of the story was that as you got older, the pretty pony turned out to have a very mean heart. Quite a beautiful story, really._________________My Site

Well, I posted this in "Still a Dream" but I think I should have put it here instead

This is a sample of the 6dB output of the Mankato VCF. Given how smooth the 24dB output sounds, I was surprised by the bite of these sounds. Very 'wet' and squelchy. The tone source is my (t)rusty Odyssey (it's the drone you hear at the very beginning of the sample). I used a Mankato VCF driven by another Mankato set to work as a VCLFO, and the VCLFO is driven by a standard LFO. The VCLFO often goes up into (and through) the audio range, which creates a neat "splatty" sounding heterodyning tone. Anyway, here's the 6dB output of the Mankato!

Not a pure TH patch obviously but it does make use of my two SN Voice's in the sequenced part of track...

Thanks for posting this!

It's got SN-Voices, it certainly qualifies. We have precious few SN-Voice samples to begin with (I say as my SN-Voice board still awaits population).

Anyway, nice track! Sounds very sci-fi to me - it gives me the impression of a malevolent race of machines hatching a plot that's not entirely for the benefit of the humans. And parts of it sound almost like sibilant words are being formed here and there. What's creating that higher pitched ratcheting noise sound?

This little ditty is a myth buster; it blows away the notion that you need a lot of gear to make good sound

And it blows away the notion that electronic music is "cold." This piece oozes warmth and feeling. The sounds perfectly fit the images of a man and his young son walking together through a small town on Memorial Day. Bravo Stites.

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BTW, if you're really crafty, a leaf blower can sound simply sublime on its own... Think of it as a PCO: a petroleum controlled oscillator

A PCO--thanks for this! My perception of that infernal machine is changed forever--it will always be music to my ears now. Well, almost music.

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